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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

[stub for offtopicness]

(come on you guys, anything this repetitive is off topic on HN. we want curious conversation here...)

It is the day after Google's 25th birthday, where we celebrated not only 25 years of ruining the Internet, but also the 289 products they brought to market and then unceremoniously dumped away.

And now today [as of 9/28/2023 at 3:18 PM ET] we celebrate the 290 products they brought to market and then unceremoniously dumped away.

Hey, that's not fair. Google spent about ten years being a net positive for the internet. They used to have a program where they'd pay for pizza delivery for anyone who was up late coding. They've been churning out good FOSS for most of their existence. Given they've been more harm than good for several years now, but let's not rob them of their bright beginnings.

Google is the perfect example of living off just a couple of good decisions made in the past. I wonder how many rich people behave just like Google, i.e. they are touted as being business geniuses but in reality got their wealth from a luckily investment and it has been a struggle ever since

Most companies are this. If you look into detail at the vast majority of successful companies, there is a single product or service that makes the vast majority of their money and it was a combination of hard work, right timing, luck, 6 other things and it's not repeatable.

Frank Slootman (CEO of several public companies, now Snowflake) talks about this in his book. He basically says "don't try to build new products, you aren't going to catch lightning in a bottle twice". There are a few great counter examples, (amazon with AWS being the most obvious) but not many.

"The next phase of digital whiteboarding for Google Workspace"

A classic Google cancellation title if I've ever seen one.

I'll hold out for the next next phase

Why do they even make new products at this point

If they don't make new products, what are they going to shut down?

And one more to the casket - https://killedbygoogle.com/

OMG I completely missed they killing Google Podcasts.

Just terrible since I dont want to deal with anything YouTube.

It needs a graph over time. It seems like it's going exponential based on HN headlines.

For fuck's sake. Have so many of these in the office.

Never buying a Google product again. This is beyond ridiculous at this point.

Interesting. A full year of notice is actually pretty good for a Google shutdown if my memory serves correctly.

I think it's reasonable to say that shutdowns are their core competency at this point.

Wow! What a bunch of shortsighted people manage Google! First, they launched half-baked products and spend zero effort to evolve them, then, second, they say: "Oh, I didn't attract much adoption." Well, people are NOT stupid - nobody wants to be dealing an agonizing body as it will be a complete lost of time and effort knowing the sure fate in Google's graveyard!

Google doing what Google does. Anyone have a good rec for an alternative to Nest doorbell with 24/7 coverage and no monthly subscription? May as well get ahead of that end-of-life notification.

Typical Google.

Does anyone have the link showing that many of these now dead projects are just competition projects for Google developers to wrestle for internal status and power, or to escape Google grunthood?

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